Auditor warns £35bn Whitehall savings off target July 20, 2010 WHITEHALL departments are unlikely to come up with the £35bn of annual savings as planned, government auditors have warned. The National Audit Office said the savings programme initiated by the Treasury would fall short. The NAO reviewed the savings so far of five major departments, including the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, which [...]
Government borrowing surges to £14.5bn in June July 20, 2010 The Government borrowed a higher than expected £14.5bn in June, according to official data. According to the figures from the Office for National Statistics the figure is only slightly down on a year ago. It means the nation’s net debt now stands at £926.9bn, which represents 63.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). That [...]
William Hill boosted by World Cup July 20, 2010 BOOKMAKER William Hill said first half earnings would be fractionally higher on the year before with the football World Cup offsetting the company’s worst ever results from horseracing at Royal Ascot. William Hill, which has around 2,300 betting shops in Britain and Ireland, said it expected earnings before interest, tax and amortisation to be around [...]
IG earnings surge by 25pc in volatile markets July 20, 2010 IG Group – Britain’s biggest spread betting firm – met expectations with a 25 per cent rise in profits after volatile markets during the European sovereign debt crisis encouraged customers to place more bets. The company had a pretax profit of £157.6m in the year to 31 May, up from £125.9m the previous year, and [...]
Oil “seepage” not related to BP leak July 20, 2010 BP can keep its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well capped for at least another day, after it was determined that nearby seepage was not related to the leak, US officials have said. Thad Allen said the energy company could continue a pressure test for 24 more hours at the well, which was capped last week, [...]
Ryanair profit plunges after ash cloud crisis July 20, 2010 RYANAIR’S first-quarter profit has plunged by 24 per cent because of the volcanic ash cloud which grounded planes across Europe earlier in the year. The airline said the Icelandic ash cloud had caused it to scrap almost 10,000 flights at a cost of €50m. As a result its pre-tax profit was €93.7m (£80m) for three [...]
Indian oil giant mulls £1bn float July 19, 2010 JUBILANT Energy, an Indian-based oil and gas exploration company, is considering a flotation on the London Stock Exchange, according to City sources. City stockbroker Evolution Securities, assisted by Renaissance Capital, is testing out the appetite for a money-raising in London, say the sources.? A spokesman for Evolution told City A.M. “Clearly it has been looking [...]
Osborne in bonfire of tax code July 19, 2010 GEORGE Osborne will today launch an independent body charged with stripping the fat from Britain’s bloated tax code. The new Office for Tax Simplification (OTS) will advise the chancellor on how to simplify the tax system for businesses and individuals, in keeping with the coalition’s aim of proving the UK?is “open for business”. John Whiting, [...]
Swiss data will go to US July 19, 2010 A Swiss court for the first time cleared the way for the transfer to Washington of bank data about a UBS client, following the Swiss parliament’s approval of a key tax deal. The Swiss federal administrative court said yesterday it had rejected objections by a UBS client to data transfer, saying the parliamentary vote had [...]
Our tax code needs a total overhaul July 19, 2010 LET us hope the coalition is serious about tax simplification. Britain’s taxes are not only far too high; they are also extraordinarily complicated. I was recently talking to a very senior tax lawyer who admitted to me that no single person understands more than a small proportion of our tax code. His views were all [...]
